Oswego senior linebacker, Iowa recruit Carson Cooney is the 2024 Record Newspapers Player of the Year

Carson Cooney’s introduction to Oswego football was a unique one to kids in his community.

He was in kindergarten when his dad, Brian, came aboard as Oswego’s head football coach. Carson, oldest of three boys, still holds fond memories of running around at Oswego practices and being a ball boy on Friday nights.

“Just going to those games on Friday nights, I remember walking into the packed stadium and I thought it was the coolest thing,” Cooney said. “I looked up to those guys like they were NFL players. That was my dream to be like them.”

Cooney indeed lived the dream ... and etched his own legacy within the Panthers’ football program.

He first came up to the varsity as a sophomore, a tough year for Oswego football, its first losing season in more than a decade.

By the time he left, Cooney had led Oswego back to the top. The senior middle linebacker and Iowa commit was the ringleader of a fierce defense that propelled the Panthers to their first 9-0 regular season since 2018 and first conference championship in a full season since eight in a row from 2011-2018.

Cooney – who had 77 tackles, seven tackles for loss, three sacks, 14 quarterback hurries, an interception and fumble recovery – was a Class 8A Illinois Football Coaches Association All-State pick.

He is the Record Newspapers Player of the Year.

“I am blessed, I would say that’s the word. Blessed to say that I was able to play with these guys,” Cooney said. “The season we had, it’s not something that Oswego has not done before, but just the group and the way we played spoke volumes. The intensity, the leadership that was on our team, we didn’t let anybody get their heads down. We always had each other’s back. It was different.”

Cooney was in the center of a talented senior linebacking corps, flanked by Mikey Claycombe and Easton Ruby, for a defense that allowed just 70 points over its first 10 games.

A kid who started as a running back, Cooney went back to his roots to rush for three touchdowns taking direct snaps out of a Wildcat formation. He even used his 6-foot-3, 225-pound frame to block some at tight end.

“When you dissect our defense, being in the middle, any Mike linebacker in our style has got to be a bit of a fighter pilot, take some hits and do the dirty work like the guys on the D-line,” Brian Cooney said. “Typically more times than not it’s the Mike filling the plays up. Carson was an important part of what we do, and there were so many other kids in the right spot at the right time.

“Being in the middle, being able to play two positions on offense, spot him at tight end and did a lot of the dirty work as an additional blocker, and he loved it.”

Carson started in flag football as a kid, when he could barely run. Always on the bigger side for his age, a pound or two underneath the weight limit and on the aggressive side, he asked and received his mom, Julie’s, blessing to transition to tackle as he entered third grade.

He started at running back, but around the time the Cooneys moved from Yorkville to Oswego in junior high, Carson began to transition to linebacker. There’s family history there. It’s a position Brian played at Aurora University.

“It was a learning curve, an adjustment,” Brian Cooney said. “I do believe going into eighth grade or freshman year I saw, not a complete change, but a real change in his intensity, physicality and aggressiveness. I don’t know what prompted it, but when he got to high school his interest in football definitely became elevated.”

Always taller, but skinny, Cooney realized playing linebacker at the sophomore level that he needed to put on weight. He hit the weight room hard that offseason after his sophomore year, put on 20-30 pounds.

Cooney earned his first scholarship offer, from Illinois, in June of 2023. He committed to Iowa, his dream school, in February 2024.

A one-time linebacker himself, Brian Cooney has coached some good ones at Oswego and has watched his son grow into a complete player at the position.

“He’s got a level of intensity, and a good nose for the football with traffic around him,” Brian Cooney said. “The nose for the ball, the physicality.

“He’s also realized that you don’t need to play the same every play. There is a time to be fast and slippery, and there is a time to put your foot on the ground and hold your ground. He has learned the finer points of that.”

Carson is ready for the next chapter of his football life, while reflecting on the last. He has just a few days of school at Oswego left. He leaves for Iowa City on Jan. 18, where he’ll early enroll at Iowa.

“It’s hasn’t hit me yet, going to college next month, the emotions – but can’t wait," Cooney said. “I’m looking forward to it, itching to get there.

“Games this last season, wins against Minooka and Joliet Catholic, those games definitely stick out. Great memories I’ll never forget.”